There’s a new Woog & Berry poddy up in which we discuss, at length, the parlous state of my sex life in comparison to my ah, needs.

So things have just been travelling along as they do. There are family realignment papers to be signed so that is a development. Not unexpected but confronting all the same. I keep thinking to myself, just like that.

But something that has crept up on me is a pining for physical contact. Oh sure, a bit of hot sex would be grand fuck I need to get laid but it’s more the physicality of a relationship. The enveloping hugs, the hand on the knee, yes the dry hump in the kitchen as you’re trying to get dinner ready, their smell.

I may start crash-tackling friends’ husbands just to sniff them and get some male pheromones on me. You’re all warned.

The online dating fiasco is ongoing. I am so half-hearted about it and largely only engage with it for ridicule purposes so I’m not sure why I’m surprised and a little dejected that not one man has contacted me. OK, three have but the less said about those the better. I think I am pushing shit up a hill being fat, forty with four kids and a dyke haircut. I mean, who am I kidding.

My admiration of Annabel Crabb is well established so I will not revisit it due to it bordering on embarrassing and inappropriate. But her first cookbook Special Delivery is fabulous. There are myriad recipes I have bookmarked but keep coming back time and time again to this apricot slice recipe. I’ve made it four times. FOUR.

This is a firm family favourite, of course it is, it involves deep frying, but the chicken is so so tasty I can see past the painfulness of cleaning up post fry.

Although, I read it somewhere that the trick with deep frying at home is to do it in a really deep saucepan so your stovetop and surrounds don’t end up slicked with oil and they were right! You still get splatter but nothing like what I was getting using a wok.

So my main suggestions here are to make sure you use the right flour for dusting – sweet potato/potato/tapioca flour is what you’re looking for. Keep the bits of chicken nice and small so you can pop them in your mouth. Marinate the chicken for as long as possible. And don’t think of bypassing the spice salt, it, like a good salad dressing, makes the dish.

Sweet potato flour (also known as tapioca flour, I often use straight potato flour)

Five spice salt

1 tbsp salt

¼ tsp five spice

¼ tsp white pepper

pinch of chilli powder

Instructions

Toss the chicken with the marinade and set aside for as long as you've got

Toss the chicken in the potato flour - I am very gung-ho at this step, I'm sure you're meant to go gently and toss a few bits at a time but I chuck the whole bag of flour in a large bowl and dump the chicken in and toss to thoroughly coat

Heat the oil and then fry the chicken in batches for about 3 minutes until nice and golden. Again, I know the cardinal rule of not overcrowding the fry but last time I did the whole 1kg of chicken in just three batches and guess what, it worked! I will leave this to your better judgement and patience

I’ve told you about The Tallest Man On Earth before, but this is a whole set at a music festival. This is the only way I will be a part of a music festival. The whole idea of being jammed in with all those punters makes me hot and not in a good way.

I found this somehow today, basically looking to see if he was coming to Australia because I missed him last.

I’m feeling weird today. I just really want an all-enveloping hug from a man where I can feel swallowed up while drinking in his smell. That’s all.

Anyway, that’s not likely to happen any time soon so I shall keep listening to Kristian Matsson and grow accustomed to the longing.

I absolutely adore cinnamon and will consciously try to work it into as many dishes as humanly possible. Having said that, the overnight waffles are still the favourite in this house but these come in a very close second.

Now I know some of you are going to read the recipe, see you have to whisk the egg whites and move right along. I know this because I was one of you. The reason ricotta pancakes never get a work out in this house is for that very reason, having to separate the eggs and whisk the whites. But here’s the thing, it takes about three minutes. Three. So just do it ok? Ok.